


get a little bit genghis khan

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes is Sinful Apple Pie, Bucky is Sly and Smooth as Hell and Always Knows What His Stevie Needs, Fluff, Jealous Steve, M/M, Possessive Steve, The Famous Barnes Charm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not as if no one could have seen it, could have known it was coming. People loved him, admired him. Of course they'd occupy his attention, his time. That was inevitable. But the fact is, Steve's a jealous bastard. </p><p>And that may well be an understatement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	get a little bit genghis khan

**Author's Note:**

> Whilst taking my morning bus, a song comes on. [You know which song I speak of](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P_SlAzsXa7E). So I opened Gdocs on my phone, and almost missed my stop. So goes a leap day Monday morning. 
> 
> Love to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad), as ever.

There’s a piece of this whole thing that no one really took into account. And they should have, Steve thinks now, watching it unfold. The inevitable.

Because if there’s anything that modern America loves? It’s a sob story. Second maybe only to an improbable happy ending. Star-crossed odds and that kind of thing.

And they might love to see a hero fall, but when a hero falls, becomes a legend, suffers torture, is twisted and broken at the hands of the terrorists or whatever they’re calling the enemy these days: when _that_ kind of hero comes back from the dead and climbs back to himself and smiles as bright and alluring and magnetic as ever? That’s a sob story and a happy ending more improbable than crossed-stars. That’s the impossible taking shape.

And Steve’s pretty sure it doesn’t hurt that Bucky looks like apple pie and _sin_ at the very same time—like _sinful_ apple pie—every day of the Congressional inquiry.

There was never going to be a trial for the Winter Soldier without a national uprising, is what he’s saying. They worried, and wrung their hands, and Steve’s not innocent of doing just that enough for everyone, but if they’d really thought about it? A country that could nominate that Drumph character for president wasn’t going to let James Buchanan Barnes burn at the stake. Morality wasn’t the key concern—not that Bucky’s was impeachable more than that of any one of them; Steve had never had _brainwashing_ as justification for the blood on _his_ hands—but morality was never the way to court public opinion.

It was charm. And hell, but Bucky, now that he’s mostly Bucky again? He’s a tragic figure who makes every man, woman, and child he meets just a little bit weak in the knees.

So. Right. Bucky Barnes was going to be just fine.

For which Steve is eternally grateful, do not get him wrong. Steve started going to church again, whether or not he believed in anything it stood for—which depended on the day, to be honest—but he went, because he needed somewhere to just express, to breathe through how _thankful_ he is.

But in moments, such as this one, where he sees the darkest parts of himself on display for… well, for no one to see, because that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? That’s part of what’s eating him, what’s pumping through his veins with a force and a rhythm he’s never felt before because Bucky is with him—is _with_ him, is his everything and his world and the love of his fucking life and yes Steve is just as enamoured with the man, the legend, the impossible happy ending and he gets to fucking live it, gets to wrap himself around it nearly every night and breathe it in: Bucky is with _him_ , goddamnit.

See? See, this is the problem. Because here they are, and yes, Steve was well aware that they were going to fail miserably at the whole incognito thing if they went to Coney Island, even in the kinda-off season, but Bucky’d wanted it, and if Steve was honest, so did he. And so they went, and here they are.

Correction: here Steve is. Bucky is currently about ten yards away, surrounded by a fucking mob.

And Steve’s actually kind of an expert on mobs, of all sorts, but particularly the fawning, adoring kind, which is what he’s got here. Because there was the USO, and he was pretty popular. There was coming out of the ice, and he was even more popular. Then he met Tony Stark, and, well, there was that. So.

This, here, though, is impressive even to him.

Because they’ve only just got through the lines to get in, see, and there are legitimately people paying admission so that they can be _near_ Bucky. There are children wearing shirts with metallic appliques down the arms. There are men with red stars _tattooed_ on their biceps arguing with other men who have Bucky’s current red ‘x’ instead (because he changes it, now, just for the hell of it) and are bickering back and forth about who ‘dug the Winter Soldier first’, like who knew him back in the day as if he’s a band from the 80s, because Steve understands that’s a thing.

And Steve actually does keep his irritation low-key up to this point. Up to the point where he can just watch Bucky smile with wide eyes, still disbelieving that he’s not only _not_ reviled with his head on a chopping block, but he’s fucking _adored_ : because Steve won’t ever get enough of that face, a little flushed, beaming out like choirs of angels and the sun too close—Steve keeps the building anger to a low hum, so long as he can just watch that as Bucky shakes hands, signs shirts and hats and tickets to ride.

Steve keeps it to a low hum, until his view is interrupted by a pair of ample breasts half-bared, awaiting Bucky’s signature.

Something Steve didn’t really know he had inside of him, holding something back? That thing snaps, just then.

And Bucky, of course, he just laughs, and signs closer to her shoulder. She leans in to steal a kiss from him, and Steve sees fucking _red_ , even if Bucky turns to let it land on his cheek in the end.

Because how dare they, how _dare_ they presume they can have his time, his attention—how dare they think they can touch him, that anyone can touch him, that he wants it, that he’s okay with it, that it’s allowed, that—

Ah. See, here’s that deep dark secret that at least no one’s there to see, except that’s all Steve _wants_.

Because he’s got a possessive streak, and always has. He’d resigned himself to it never getting what it wanted way back when, when Bucky was a catch and Steve was a burden, at best, but then Steve could give as good as he got when he worked up the courage to kiss Bucky outside of that pub in London, and the world shifted, and that streak in him gleamed gold and spat fire and said _mine_.

So, there it is. Steve Rogers is a jealous bastard. And that may well be an understatement. 

But Steve is a jealous bastard in love, and it’s his good fortune that the love always wins, hands down. So he seethes, maybe, and he aches, a little, and he just wants to bask a little bit closer in Bucky’s light, yes, so maybe he saunters over, just a bit: not close enough to intrude, to steal that beam but enough to feel its heat, and that helps, because somehow Steve knows that while everyone lights up near Bucky—it’s unavoidable—not everyone gets to feel that warmth in their blood like Steve does.

That’s Steve’s, and Steve’s alone.

Eventually, Bucky satisfies the majority of the crowd, and the remnants are blissfully decent enough to smile, profess their admiration, and shuffle away under the wave of Bucky’s genuine delight and unending surprise, still.

And then it’s just the two of them.

Bucky’s eyes meet his, and their color changes just slightly as he takes Steve in, and Steve feels that gaze in every inch of his body as it rakes up and down, as it reads him clear through, and Steve sees when Bucky finds it, that deep-dark place: Bucky’s eyes widen, darken even further, and his lips quirk in a knowing smirk that Steve doesn’t know if he wholly understands, but that his jeans get tight as a result of, so he’s pretty sure understanding is a secondary concern.

And between blinks, Bucky's in front of him. Between breaths, Bucky’s mouth is on Steve’s, and the kiss he gives Steve is something otherworldly, like Steve can feel his soul suck up through his throat and tease at the seeking, coaxing tongue that Bucky runs against his teeth: it’s hot and dizzying and in the middle of the world, where anyone can see, and Steve understands, in the instant before they part, just shy of gasping, that this is proof he’s given: because Bucky had given a little bit of himself to all of his adoring fans, but this?

This is all of him. And this is _Steve’s_.

And Steve’s chest is warm and full with that indomitable light, for it. Steve leans, and sucks softly on Bucky’s neck, like an acknowledgement: message received.

And Bucky hums, satisfied, _good, you idiot_ , and Steve follows the sound and its unspoken words with his open lips against the skin until he finds Bucky’s mouth once again.

“Know what, Rogers?” Bucky asks, smiling softly as Steve nips at the corners of that smile, as greedy as he is needy and maybe it’s shameful, a little, but hell if he cares.

“Think I wanna raincheck.”

Steve pulls back a little; frowns, a little. “We got tickets.”

Bucky looks at him like he’s a moron, like all the credit he got for understanding Bucky’s gesture just now has promptly been lost again.

“We’re fucking rich now,” Bucky points out bluntly, and yeah. Okay, Steve sometimes does forget that. 

“Take me home.”

The huskiness in Bucky’s voice just then, though, and what it tends to mean: Steve never misplaces the meaning of _that_.

In that moment, though; in the way Bucky slips a hand in Steve’s back pocket and subtly steers their retreat, in the tone Bucky uses and the look in his eyes, Steve—and maybe he always knew it, really, deep down; but in that moment, Steve understands what that deep-dark streak in him is all about. It’s not about having, or possessing, or controlling: and the thrumming command in Bucky’s words makes that one clear as anything, because if anyone’s in charge more often than the other, it’s Bucky, and it always was. But the thing is, it’s not about the having. The grasping. Not really.

For Steve, it’s about knowing he belongs. Knowing he belongs _to_.

As if he can read his thoughts, Bucky leans to bite quick at the corner of Steve’s jaw, soothes it with his tongue, and runs the line of his nose against Steve’s cheek in a gesture with so many meanings, and so much feeling, that Steve nearly comes undone then and there, and once more: the message is clear. He’s got nothing to be jealous of.

This, here, is what really matters.

And this is just for him.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
